Stepping Out of my Gaming Shell
Lately I have been getting out of my gaming shell to a certain degree. Until Resident Evil 5 I never seriously got into a Resident Evil game before. I tried on two separate occasions. The first Resident Evil game I played was Code Veronica on the Dreamcast, where I was introduced to the then series-standard tank controls that did not gel with me whatsoever. After failing to adapt to the controls and getting slaughtered by the first generic zombie multiple times, my frustration hit the boiling point and I went so low as to return the game for a refund at Wal-Mart citing that the disc would not work.
Resident Evil 4 on the Wii I had a chance to try out for roughly 10 minutes and thought “Hell yeah! Intuitive controls; can’t wait to dive into this some more!” Even though I wanted to get more into RE4, I had other games in my backlog I made a priority and I could not fathom playing many other Wii games, which led to me trading in the system and games for Rock Band (I have no regrets over that decision, got way more value out of Rock Band over the Wii).
Come a couple months ago in April and I find myself wanting to give Resident Evil one more shot. I picked up RE5 and almost immediately had a change of heart for the series. The only road block was upon starting Chris and Sheva’s adventure was getting accustomed to not being able to run and shoot simultaneously. That scheme ruined Metal Gear Solid 2 for me. (Sorry stealth fans, but I love to run ‘n gun!) It initially seemed clunky and unintuitive, as watching Chris have such a limited range in slicing with his knife seemed awkward. However, after a few checkpoints I found myself used to this rather unique scheme, and eagerly anticipating the next waves of zombies, excuse me, “infected” to mow down. I am relieved this was not the same Resident Evil I first tried nearly 10 years ago, while I would not be surprised Resident Evil die-hards were miffed with the new action-y approach in gameplay, I discovered it to be a far more enjoyable experience.
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